


Come Clean

by audreyslove



Series: Home [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-10-05 22:01:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17333141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audreyslove/pseuds/audreyslove
Summary: Regina tells Daniel about Robin.  Home-verse.





	Come Clean

That time between Christmas and New Years is a bit of a honeymoon period. They both have the week off, and though they aren’t exactly where they were supposed to be enjoying their holiday (Him, in Montana, her, in Arizona with Daniel’s family), it’s been nothing short of amazing. They make love at least once a day, discovering each other in every way they can, visiting their favorite restaurants, indulging in whatever treats they can like a pair of hedonists, but she doesn’t mind one bit, because god knows they’ve been through enough misery.

But then one night, after they are finishing off a bottle of Chianti and some osso buco Regina managed to make despite Robin’s lack of kitchen supplies, Robin ends the blissful mood with a few words.

“So, um, I have a few missed calls from Daniel.”

Her blood rushes cold.

“I didn’t really ask you if had told him about us — and whatever you did, please know it’s fine, I just, um, I need to know what you want us to do about this.”

She bites her lip. “While we were breaking up, he asked if I met someone and made me change my mind on the engagement. And technically it was no one I had _met,_ and I wasn’t ending the engagement only because of you, I mean, I didn’t even know you’d still want to be with me at that time. So I said no, that I wasn’t about anyone else. Then later he asked how I realized that we fell out of love, I think he admitted that he did fall out of love, too. And I told him I started realizing because I was falling for someone else.”

Robin looks up at her with a combination of guilt and pride.

“I didn’t tell him who. He didn’t immediately guess you. In fact, he asked if I fell in love with David Nolan first.”

Robin laughs. “Jesus fucking Christ, Daniel.”

Regina shrugs. “I wanted to tell him, but I wouldn’t confirm or deny who it was… I felt I had to talk to you first. If you didn’t want to be with me, I didn’t want to ruin your friendship with Daniel, so I would have kept the secret for you.”

“No sense in that now,” Robin sighs. “He’s going to find out.”

“Yeah…” she sighs, “I’ll tell him.”

“We will tell him together,” Robin offers.

She shakes her head. “That might feel like we are ganging up on him. It is unfair.”

“I don’t want you doing this. I’m just as responsible.”

“I was engaged to him, Robin,” she sighs. “I owe it to him. Please, just let me do this.” She grabs her phone and frowns. “I’m going to call him from your bedroom… god, that sentence sounds so wrong.”

Robin chuckles sadly. “I could try to drive you to your home if you want.”

“No it’s miserable out there,” Regina looks out at the snow and shakes her head. “Just… give me privacy.”

He does, even raises the volume on the TV so he can’t hear her, and she readies herself, breathing a shaky sigh as she looks up Daniel on her contact list and hits “call”.

“Um, hi?” Daniel answers, a bit confused, maybe annoyed at her for calling out of the blue like this.

“Hi, Daniel,” Regina sighs. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“About the guy you’re fucking?” he asks, and her blood rushes cold, frankly yes, but, it’s more than that.

“Daniel, I fell in love with someone else. And I wasn’t sure anything would come of it, especially since we were engaged and I had fixed to move across the country for _you.”_

“But let me guess, the dude does want you after all.”

God, she can feel his hurt from here. It’s awful.

“Yes,” she admits.

“And let me guess, the guy is Robin, right?” Daniel asks, accusatory and angry. Before she can confirm, he’s launching into it. “You know, you probably thought I was an idiot for not figuring it out sooner. But it’s really just I thought better of Robin. When you told me you knew about the presents, I should have known. But he just doesn’t seem like the type to turn in a friend like that.”

“Daniel, I am so sorry, this isn’t on him—”

“I fucking knew it was him!” Daniel screams, both triumphant and angry and it’s only then she realizes he didn’t fully believe it was Robin until that moment. “You know I always knew he had a crush on you. At least when I first met you he did, but I assumed that went away a long time ago.”

“Wait, you _knew?_ So why did you tell me that Robin wanted us together? That he set us up? If you knew he didn’t and you knew he wanted me—”

“So I told a little lie to get my foot in the door. You _cheated_ on me, Regina, do we want to talk about honesty? I think you win the prize for dishonesty here.”

He’s not wrong. In fact, he’s entirely right. She takes a deep breath and reminds herself part of moving forward is owning your past mistakes.

“You’re right. I am the bad one in our relationship. I did something terrible, Daniel, and I’m sorry. It was cowardly. I should have been more honest with myself. I shouldn’t have accepted the engagement. Maybe I should have ended it when you said you were leaving California and not taking me with you because that’s when I knew somewhere deep inside that we weren’t going to last.”

“Come on, Regina, that’s unfair. You were fine with us until whatever happened between you and him.”

“I _wasn’t,”_ she insists. “We _broke up_ before anything happened between me and Robin. We never did anything inappropriate until that phone call. And I tried, Daniel, when you came back I tried to put all of my second thoughts and all my worries out of my mind. But it didn’t work. Our problems were not caused by Robin. Robin happened because we were already having problems.”

“Our biggest problems were caused by dishonesty,” Daniel spits back.

“Yes. I wasn’t honest with you.” Regina clears her throat. “But between you and Robin it’s not so black and white. You… you knew he liked me and went after me anyway and used his seal of approval to get me to— oh my god, did you know I liked him too? You must have, otherwise, you wouldn’t have told me about how much Robin wanted us together, and all those stories about how happy he was with Marian, you, you did that on purpose!”

Daniel sighs. “This isn’t about that. Yes, I noticed you two might have had a bit of a crush on one another. Years ago. But Robin was with _Marian._ No good would have come from it. He was still in that relationship, miserable or not. You and I were single.”

“Don’t act like you were doing us and Marian a favor,” Regina spits back. “This wasn’t a selfless act.”

“Yeah, I met you and I wanted you, okay? And Robin wasn’t in a place to have you. Trust me, one day when Robin leaves you for another pretty new hire you’ll understand where I’m coming from!”

Her blood boils at that, but fuck, Daniel is angry and hurt and he gets to be.

“Maybe he will leave me,” Regina says, her heart aching, not believing what she says, “But I know if he was feeling something for someone else, I wouldn’t want the only reason he stayed with me to be because some guy beat him to the woman he _really_ wanted. No one wants to be the person you settled for.”

Daniel groans. “Is that who I almost was?”

Regina bites her lip. She had meant _Marian_ was that person for Robin, but well…

“If I had stayed with you, even with nothing happening with Robin, I wouldn’t have been happy. I _wasn’t_ happy. And neither were you. You _know_ you weren’t.”

“Maybe because you weren’t fully with me, you were too busy thinking about Robin,” Daniel argues.

Regina sighs. “It wasn’t like that, and you know it. I was with _you._ I wasn’t aware he even had feelings for me until recently.”

Daniel scoffs. “Honestly, Robin acted as if he got over you right away and I believed it. He never seemed to mind, and trust me, Regina, I told him things about you, about us, that would make you embarrassed.”

He lets it sink in, pausing. It does have the effect he wants. Regina’s blood runs cold, wondering what exactly he means, what he said. Whatever it was it didn’t seem to deter Robin from his feelings. It must not have been so bad.

Daniel continues. “I told him about things you did, things we did, and that son of a bitch never reacted, never seemed hurt, never seemed jealous. Maybe he was over you and only renewed his interest when you were alone and coming on to _him_ and he wanted an easy fuck.”

She knows he trying to hurt him. “Daniel. I didn’t come on him. You had asked me to give the ring back, and I was sad and he was comforting me and we got drunk, okay?”

Daniel must be giving up on whatever idea he had about trying to convince her Robin doesn’t care, because then he continues his rant, hurt lacing his tone. “He acted like you two were friends and nothing more. I let you guys spend so much time and never worried, I trusted you two so much! He made me believe he was totally over it. And fuck it, all that trust I gave you both, and you went behind my back, you both hid feelings, and, fuck, Regina you lied to me. Both of you did.”

“I know, Daniel,” She sighs. She’s the happy one. She’s the one in a relationship with someone else. She’s going to have to take this, all this unfairness, all these words said of anger from a person she once cared so much for. It stings, has her in tears, but she won’t let him know he’s made her cry, just in case it makes him feel guilty and has him holding back what he needs to say. Daniel deserves to get this all out now.

Regina takes a breath in and tries to let the anger she has towards him out.

“There were many things I wasn’t honest about. I wasn’t honest about how much I hated that engagement surprise, about how much I hated you making me believe you were leaving. God, Daniel, I thought we were doing long distance and I had tried to make peace with it, but it hurt. I wasn’t honest when I felt like I didn’t fit in your world. I wasn’t honest when I was worried I’d never measure up to what I knew you wanted. I wanted it all to work, I really did love you, Daniel, and I thought things might come naturally to me one day, so I decided to fake it until it felt right. I wasn’t honest with you or myself and it got us into a mess. Most of all I wasn’t honest with you or myself when I first realized I was in love with Robin — not right away. I take responsibility for that and I’m so, so sorry.”

There’s a bit of silence, and then Daniel grits out, “Thank you.”

She shouldn't do this, but she can’t help it. “This is my fault. Don’t take it out on anyone else.”

And just like that, the slight bit of progress they have goes out the window.

“Oh fucking hell, Regina, don’t defend that asshole,” Daniel grouses. “Seriously, under the circumstances, I think I'm entitled to hate him for the rest of my life, but can you at least give me a few weeks?”

“I’m sorry,” she says quickly, wincing. “You’re right. I just want to take responsibility for this. I don’t want you blaming the wrong person.”

“I blame you both, you bitch!!” He responds in that cutting way he does, the anger boiling inside of him, but it’s fine. She earned all this.

“I deserved that,” she responds, after a little gasp, because Daniel doesn’t name call, it’s not in him, not usually. He’s kind to her, always has been until this break-up.

Her words are met with silence for a few beats, then Daniel sighs and softens. “No, you didn’t.”

She tries to deflect, starts a sentence with, “No, I—”

“No, I’m being unfair because the whole thing is still a shock to me. But I know. We talked before you left, and I agreed that things hadn’t felt quite right for a while. It was becoming a bit forced. I thought maybe it was the stress of me relocating to California, then the stress of being apart, but, look, as angry as I am, I do know, I do agree things weren’t quite where they should be. And if you’re being honest about when you and Robin first started—”

“A few days after that phone call where you asked for the ring back. I’m being honest,” Regina says.

“Well, that’s a bit fucking soon. But yeah, I know we had problems for a while before that. And maybe it would have happened without Robin. Maybe this just made it over faster. Maybe it’s better than a failed marriage or a runaway bride or groom.”

“Runaway fiance is preferable?” Regina asks, trying to laugh, but only sobbing instead.

“Yeah, I think I’d take that over a divorce or a runaway bride,” he says back to her, his own lighter, a bit kinder.

“I am really sorry about all of this. I didn’t want to hurt you. I know I did and I don’t know how to make it better.”

“You can’t. But it’ll get better in time,” he sighs. “I’m sorry. I know I’ve said some really terrible things. Things you didn’t deserve. Things I never want you to _think_ you deserve. This is just really difficult for me.”

“I know,” she says back in a choked whisper. “I’m sorry I made things so hard on you. I never wanted to hurt you.”

“I know,” Daniel says softly. There’s silence for a minute, and then, “I should go. This was… awful. But thank you for calling me yourself. And telling me. I’d rather know this way.”

“I owed you at least this much,” she answers softly.

“Maybe so, but many people wouldn’t have made this call. You’re braver than you think. Oh, and Regina?”

“Yes?” She asks meekly, bracing for the other shoe to drop.

“I shouldn’t have lied to you over the years. I liked you a lot, but I knew I didn’t quite get you the way he did. I used him too much, relied on him too much from the very beginning. I knew there was a distance between us, and I didn’t try to fix it. I just figured if you were alright with it, I was, too. In a way, I caused all this. And I’m sorry for that.”

She almost can’t believe the maturity in his voice as he says it, she hears the hint of tears lacing the edge of the words, god, she had never meant to hurt him.

But being together when they didn’t quite fit, that was hurting them both.

“I’m sorry, too.” She has apologized at least a dozen times, but this time she feels he might hear it, might realize she’s being sincere. “I really wish I had done things differently.”

“No looking back,” Daniel says in that light-hearted way. “We can’t change the past. It’s done.”

“Have a happy new year, Daniel. And I hope your next year is your best yet.”

“I have a good feeling about it,” he says in the tearful chuckle. “Same to you.”

When she hangs up, she lets herself cry into Robin’s pillow for a good fifteen minutes, emotionally and physically exhausted, but relieved, somewhat. This had been hanging over her since the moment she got back with Robin. Now it’s over, now they can all move forward with cards out on the table.

She exits the bedroom and sits next to Robin on the couch. He opens his arms for her and takes her in. She’s a tearful, wet, snotty mess, but he doesn’t comment, doesn’t push or ask. Just accepts her as she is, lets her tell what she wants when she wants to.

Minutes pass as they watch some mindless sitcom before she turns to Robin and says, “It feels like a weight is off of my shoulders.”

Robin presses a kiss to her brow and says “Good. Do I owe him a phone call?”

She shakes her head. “He won't want to talk to you right now — maybe not ever, but I doubt it. He’s angry, but he did say he knew it was for the best. And he said before that he felt himself falling out of love too. He’s hurt, and I want to let him heal. Even if that means hating us for a long time. I’m the one who left and I’m the one who’s happy now. I want him to get that too.”

“He will,” Robin says, cuddling her close. “Men like him? Ambitious, driven, smart? They always get their happily ever after, don’t they?”

“They do,” Regina says, feeling a bit lighter. “And I was never a part of his happily ever after.”

Robin looks to her with sympathy if he is worried that she’s upset about this fact, but he has it all wrong.

“I wasn’t.” she smiles. “I know I didn’t make him as happy as I am with you. And that’s a good thing. It means now he can really find someone who makes me feel this way. And he will. It’s Daniel. He’ll find someone quickly.”

She had feared ending things with Daniel for so long and for so many reasons. Feeling like a failure, losing the comfort of a good friend, losing the advice and opinion of someone who mattered to her, someone she respected and admired. But most of all, she had been terrified of Daniel being hurt and her being the cause.

But she knows now that this is absolutely for the best. He might be hurt now, but he has the opportunity to find someone who makes him truly happy.

So she wraps her arms around Robin, lets her guilt and worry go and focuses on reclaiming what they have left of their little blissful break from reality.

After a few spiked hot chocolates and cookies, all dreary thoughts are banished by the promise of a fresh new start, a new year where she can start fresh. And Daniel can too.


End file.
